Saturday, December 24, 2005

Steve Garvey, Roll Model

"Steve Garvey is a Hall of Famer in all ways, as far as I'm concerned," said Hall of Fame manager Tom Lasorda, who managed Garvey in the Major and Minor Leagues. "He exemplified the words 'role model,' he was a great hitter, a great ballplayer."

Maybe next they'll get hot and cold running hookers for the luxury suites...

I think he had a couple children with two different women (neither were his wife and he wasn't married at the time?). I would assume he supports these children because I'm sure we would know if he hadn't.Hardly, on par with anything to do with hookers. Now James Worthy on the other hand....

Garv came up short of being our sex education president. The ex-Dodger first sacker that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame is Gil Hodges, not Garvey. Hodges had 370 career home runs, was the all-around N.L. first baseman for the 50's decade (pray say that Big Klu could field with his bat), and won the 1969 World Series as manager of the the Mets. The only thing that might be keeping Hodges out of the HOF is that he was a cigarette smoker.

Hey, it is Christmas! Give Steve Garvey a break! If Steve and I meet in a bar I am willing to go Dutch on the drinks. That means an even round of drinks with no tie-breaker.

Anybody out there buy some of those Fat Trapper pills endorsed by Garvey? "Take these pills, eat all you want, and you won't gain weight." At least Garvey had a high school named after him!

That said, I did attend the 1984 NLCS Game 4 Chi Cubs @ San Diego in which Garvey had rbis in four different at bats. The last 2 of his 5 rbi came on a walk-off home run off of Lee Smith in the bottom of the ninth. Most of the crowd in Jack Murphy Stadium was tilting to one side as if they were a church bell ringing after that win. Hands down, no doubt about it, the greatest game in Padres history, thank you Steve!

Sure, Garvey will most be remembered as a Dodger. Yet his greatest game was as a Padre.

I am more of a Don Sutton fan than a Steve Garvey fan. Don Sutton is very comparable with Nolan Ryan (both had 324 career wins). All things being equal, if there was a one-game winner-take-all match-up between Sutton and Ryan I would pick Sutton to win it. I remember the 1980 NLCS Game 5 Phil @ Hou 8th inning with the Astros up 5-2 and Ryan on the mound. It took four pitches in the 8th inning for the Phillies to load the bases. Manager Bill Virdon had not warmed up southpaw Joe Sambito sufficiently so Ryan had to stay in to walk Pete Rose. The Phillies wound up with a 5-run inning and won the game 8-7 to advance to the World Series.